Monday, October 7, 2013

Day 7: Time flies when you're having leaks!

A few tidbits to start us off today: Eevee evolves into Sylveon by maxing out its Pokémon-Amie happiness. FUCK. So if you want to catch 'em all, it's unavoidable, you're going to have to put up with this crap. Speaking of Pokémon-Amie, it's heavily rumored that its added effects DO NOT affect the Battle Tower Maison or battles against human players. Phew, crisis averted. At least Gamefreak knew how bad all this would be for the metagame. Finally, Moonblast seems to be a clone of Thunderbolt and Flamethrower, with 15 PP and 95 power. So much for Fairy not having a good move, right? Here's to hoping it gets good distribution.

Edit: Oblivion Wing is said to be an 80 power, 100 accuracy attack that drains HP. However, there are conflicting reports on the magnitude of the draining, some say 50%, some say 75%, some say 100%. I assume that as a cover legendary's signature move, it's going to be MUCH better than a Giga Drain with 5 more power, so I think it'll be more akin to a Draining Kiss with 20 more power instead. As for Pokémon-Amie, its happiness factor is separate from the one that already existed, so Sylveon's "traditional" happiness won't be topped after evolution. Also, judging from older information we have, Moonblast's added effect is lowering special attack (at a 10% rate like its counterparts, most likely).

Edit 2: Remember that Minotauros leak from the pre-BW1 period? Well, Minotauros still isn't a thing, but something else from the same leak is: moves that affect the terrain and create a variety of effects. Sylveon has such a move, called Misty Terrain, which makes all grounded (ergo, non-flying, non-levitating) Pokémon immune to status, AND they also take half damage from Dragon moves. Problem is, that last part is NOT in the move's description... but rather explained in one of those signs on the side of the road. Yikes. Quite frankly, I'm not sure this'll make much of an impact, because it appears both sides are affected, so YOU won't be able to status your opponents and nail them with the full power of your Dragon moves, either.

There's also another one called Electric Terrain, which was found on Magneton, though the effects are as unclear as you can get for now, so I won't go any further for now. In unrelated move news, Crafty Shield was spotted on Klefki, and it's like Protect, except it defends against NON-attack moves. Finally, Phantom Force is a Ghost-type Dig. So physical Ghost FINALLY gets something stronger than 70 attack... AND IT'S A FUCKING DIG CLONE. Goddammit Trollfreak.

Edit 3: Fairy isn't weak against Fighting. Fairy isn't strong against Ice. Now we can add to the list: Oblivion Wing isn't even a Dark move! That's right, they weren't content giving us lies with that one episode of Pokémon Smash, but the July issue of CoroCoro gave us false info too! Man, Yveltal could've been so awesome with a Dark Aura-boosted Dark draining move. It's like they didn't want anything defeating their precious Mega Mewtwo.

Edit 4: Remember when I said making popularity a factor for who gets to megavolve was a bad idea, because many Pokémon are popular because they're so powerful? I'm sure as hell not changing my mind after this. No one found the Mega Stone yet, but just the fact that there's a Super Training balloon of what looks a lot like a Mega Tyranitar is absolutely scary. I'm just praying, if that's a thing, that it gets an ability that makes megavolving a poisoned gift just by losing its current ability, like Venusaur.

By the way, somebody already reviewed X and Y: http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/4/4800980/Pokemon-x-and-pokemon-y-review

A review of a game that's not even out yet. Obviously this is one of the few privileged to get their hands on it before release.

And what do they have to say? Nothing about game mechanics or any of the competitive aspects, that's for sure. They praise Pokemon Amie and 3D battles. We haven't even played this game and I'm willing to bet we know a lot more about it than the reviewer does. That's just my opinion. Maybe pokemon amie adds a lot more fun to this game than I expect.

Just spot-checked IGN's review. They don't really discuss it either. (Both reviewers mention it but only in passing). I don't quite understand, considering that the game is all battles, why not discuss the battles (strategy, explain to those new to the franchise the flow, etc)? The battle mechanics aren't (just) the best part of the series: it's what defines it. Sure it's an established franchise and the core mechanics haven't changed but not every player is a returner. Unless they think it makes the game too complicated sounding (usually it eases you in enough to let you figure it out unless you're a noob that only power levels the starter).

I wonder if fairy-type moves will have some sort of effect in common, like the burn status for fire moves or freeze for ice moves. Not a new status effect, we would have heard about it by now, but maybe some other effect? Moonblast will probably just be boring and lower special defense, though.

Considering Jigglypuff was famous for using sing, sleep is the most likely status, but that would be ridiculously cheap. Then again, ice has the freeze effect which is functionally nearly the same thing, only the chances of inducing freeze is much lower than burn or paralysis.

And it's a crappy legendary, and it's part of an absolutely terrible gimmick that's so bad that the instant I noticed Aegislash had something similar, I was NOPE NOPE NOPE without even wanting to listen to reason.

I doubt it. Every fansite has it listed as a Dark move. I guarantee that if they said Flying, someone would've caught on.

Sorry, I'm just pissed. You make a Pokémon meant to deal with the hordes of overpowered Psychics that roam the uber tier, and then you take away the best weapon anyone could ever make for it. What's it going to do with it, aside from hope to suck a Blaziken or Shaymin-S dry with it?

Eh it hits neutrally well enough while also healing back a lot of damage. Kanpachi said that even when it didn't kill anything, if the traget was bulky enough, Yveltal got back the vast majority of its health.Might just be one of those cases of "wait and see"

By the way: Parting Shot, Geomancy and Oblivion Wing were all listed as ??? type in the last corocoro. Might be another case of what happened with Zorua (remember when corocoro claimed it was supposed to have a new evolution method?)

But why would Parting Shot change type or something? It's not even an attacking move!

And the main beef I have with Oblivion Wing being Flying is basically along the lines of not having my cake and eating it too. Even if it heals a ton, it would still be much better if it was more powerful and could hit super-effective more often, because why choose between healing and massive damage when you could do both?